Why You Should Use Lightroom’s Gradient Tool

“Oh no! I should never have sent that…”
Ever wake up in the morning and wish you could un-send that heated e-mail you wrote the day before?
Well now you can avoid that altogether with a “Tone Checker” program that works alongside your e-mail software to alert you when your tone dips into the danger zone. Just Google “Tone Checker,” and you’ll find it right away. It’s free.
Luckily, with photography, if you take something that looks a bit off, you can often fix it after the fact in Lightroom.
See another important, but super-quick, fix to a common photo issue, from stock photographer Danny Warren, below…
–Lori
Lori Allen
Director, Great Escape Publishing
BETTER SKIES AND SUNSETS WITH THE GRADIENT TOOL   
By Danny Warren in Portland, Oregon
In the good old days of photography, we would have to lug around a set of neutral density filters to achieve balanced exposures in high contrast situations.
Lightroom makes our job much easier now with the gradient tool.
In fact, the gradient tool is almost better than the old filters, as it can adjust far more than exposure. By moving a few sliders, we can also change saturation, clarity, and color cast (and even more in Lightroom 4).
Be sure not to overdo it with harsh gradients that look fake. A subtle gradient will help restore the original look of the scene and add a little more pop. See the before and after examples, below:


I added two gradients to process this image.
The first is a slight reduction in exposure across the whole sky. And the second is a further reduction in exposure and an increase in saturation and clarity across the left side of the sky.
One tool alone won’t usually fix an entire photo… but it’s a good start. This helped balance the direct sun and bring out detail and color in the clouds.
Time to fix: 30 seconds
[Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can turn your pictures into cash in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.  Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Selling Photos for Cash: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.]